


Five times Dean made Castiel's bodyguards' lives impossible and one time he didn't.

by elisa_anya



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5 Things, 5 Times, 5 times +1, 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Bottom Castiel, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Five Times, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, President's Son Castiel, Roommates, Top Dean Winchester, bodyguards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 15:23:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16088843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisa_anya/pseuds/elisa_anya
Summary: Dean loves to rattle his roommates' bodyguards. They have the task of protecting the president’s son during his stay on college and Dean’s is to annoy them.





	Five times Dean made Castiel's bodyguards' lives impossible and one time he didn't.

**Author's Note:**

> "I should be studying" is my motto. But I couldn't help myself and I wrote this little something because I missed writing a lot. This is a short silly fluff I wrote, I hope you guys enjoy it.

**1**

They just _know_ , from the very first time Castiel’s personal protective service agents lay eyes on him, that Dean would mean trouble for them. He comes into the room he’s going to be sharing with Cas for a couple of years, all swag and confidence, leather jacket and perfect facial features, carrying a box with his belongings and he looks at the son’s president up and down, ogling him shamelessly. Cas has his back to him, and Dean takes a couple of seconds to appreciate his roommate’s ass even though Meg and Bela are _right there_ and they can _see him_ doing it, but he doesn’t seem to be bothered at all by them. Apparently, he already knew he’d be sharing the room with someone of import.

The Winchester boy clears his throat and Castiel turns around. Both women see the surprised look on the young man’s face, like he wasn’t expecting someone so beautiful to address him. For someone so important and kind of famous, Cas has some major issues with his self esteem.

Dean extends his hand towards him. “You must be Castiel, right? I’m Dean.”

Cas shakes his hand. His grip is firm despite his shyness; his father taught him to always give a firm handshake, that it demands respect. Only weak men give weak handshakes and the Novaks aren’t weak people. “You’re- you’re my roommate?” His voice certainly isn’t _firm_ , nor does it demand respect. It makes Dean smile, though.

“Looks like it,” Dean sings, walking further into the room. He spares a quick glance at the female bodyguards that flank Cas, who regard him with mistrust, but then all but ignores their presence. People usually get nervous around the suits that always follow Castiel around, but Dean seems amused by their presence, like it’s a fun challenge instead of armed, dangerous people who could shoot him.

He drops the box he was carrying in the floor and stands right in front of his roommate. Castiel wants to look away from the intense stare of Dean’s green eyes, but he forces himself not to waver.

“So, Cas…” Dean bites his lower lip, Meg rolls her eyes, “top or bottom?”

Castiel blushes. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. He quickly glances sideways at the women that accompany him, almost as if to check they just heard that too. No one’s ever been so forward with him before, let alone in the presence of the fucking secret service. “Wha- what?”

Dean’s smile grows wider. He points toward the bunk beds behind Cas with a finger, eyes never leaving his roommate. “The beds. Do you want to the top or bottom?”

Bela looks away and makes a mental effort not to shoot Dean on the spot.

“Oh,” Cas laughs nervously, then shrugs. “Go ahead and pick first.”

“I’ll take the top, then,” Dean grins and rounds Cas to set his box of belongings on the top of his new bed.  Cas nods stupidly and gets back to unpacking his books while decidedly ignoring his bodyguards eyes, who are giving him a _really, Cas, really?_ sort of look.

Meg gets her phone out and starts typing a message to Crowley, the head of their little team.

_Roommate came in. Already hate him, so will you. Dig some shit on the kid so we can get a new roommate for Cas, please. M._

They try, they really do try, but there’s just nothing remotely bad concerning Dean Winchester. Dean’s a straight A student who never got so much as a parking ticket. There’s not even one compromising picture of him in his or any of his friends’ social media profiles, despite him obviously being a party boy; there’s not one tweet in his entire history of use of the app that is remotely offensive or racist or anything that might make a case against him. He’s a popular, charming young man with a lot of friends, has no history of drug use, no affiliation with any association that they might not want Castiel relating to, and to make matter worse, they confirm he’s gay, just like Cas, which explains why he ogles the son’s president and is constantly flirting with Cas, who doesn’t know how to take a compliment without blushing like a schoolgirl.

“He’s not going to fall for it,” Balthazar discusses with his peers one night. It’s a school night, the boys are already asleep, and the team is discussing Dean. “Cas is a smart kid, he’s going to see right through the troublemaker that kid is. He’s going to get sick of Dean’s obnoxious personally pretty soon, you’ll see.”

But it doesn’t happen. Castiel and Dean go everywhere together, since the moment Cas’ alarm clock sounds unnecessarily early to the moment they go to sleep when their homework is done. One an environmental engineering and the other a mechanic engineering student, they share a lot of core courses and can be seen on campus coming and going from classes and shared lunches together all the time. Their friendship does nothing but blossom, much to everyone’s surprise, including Castiel’s, who had feared his roommate would get tired of his bodyguards and ask for another roommate. The bodyguards try to put the fear of God in him, they do; they look at him wrong and Balthazar might or might not have intentionally given him a flash of his gun once to remind him to keep his tongue in check, but Dean, who has been shooting guns since he was a kid and knows they can’t really do anything to him, doesn’t seem at all concerned or intimidated by any of them, not even the older boss, Crowley.

Not able to do anything else about the Winchester boy but wait for Cas to stop hanging out with him, Crowley, Balthazar, Meg and Bela, the small but very capable team of four that composes Castiel’s security personnel, just patiently wait for them to have a fall out, for one to get tired of the other. One is a complete goodie goodie nerd and the other a cliché of a handsome bad boy, they’re bound to have a fight eventually...

**2**

Except they _don’t_. Time goes by and they don’t have so much as a small disagreement, not one political idea that they don’t see eye to eye with, which is odd because Cas is very passionate about his values and that usually doesn’t sit well with people, but Dean lets him go on and on about anything he wants, and in exchange, Dean tells him all about the movies he likes and the books Cas will have to read some day so they can talk some more about them, even though Dean’s completely spoiled them for him already. Even when they’re in bad moods, stressed over midterms, they still manage to be civil with each other.

Balthazar’s obsessed, checking all of Dean’s social media profiles hoping he’ll say something dumb or sexists or post a picture of himself drunk or _something_ , but it just doesn’t happen, not ever, not once, Dean’s correct and clever like that. Or it could be that he’s genuinely a nice person underneath his childish, flirty persona, like Cas tried to explain to his team once, but they don’t believe that. They just wait, like predators lurking in the night, for him to make a mistake.

Castiel and Dean could not be more different and that is precisely why they work so well together, why they are good for each other. Without his parents and his brother there to remind him that he needs to focus and with so many distractions available, Dean needs Cas around to ground him to reality and keep him from going to each and every party on campus. Whenever he proposes they go out to party on a school night, a stern look coming from Castiel is all he needs to know it’s not going to happen. The president’s son, in the other hand, gets obsessed with school work and Dean provides him with intermittent, mandatory distraction, taking him out on walks on the park to clear their heads -sometimes in the middle of the night, much to his security’s annoyance-, or demanding it’s time to take a break and watch a movie or an episode of The Office, which Cas finds extremely offensive and cringe-worthy and Dean just tells him that’s the whole point. Castiel wants to die of secondhand embarrassment every time Michael Scott says _anything_ at all, and Dean loves it.

On the weekends, it’s Dean’s time to shine, time to forget about school and party like a free man. He insists on taking Cas out to party with him, even though he is always being followed by the not so discreet shadows that are his bodyguards. Two at a time, they are always where he is, including parties. He fears people are going to be put out by their presence, that he’s going to ruin their fun, and though nobody ever says anything to his face, they do give him a dirty look sometimes, so he mostly turns Dean’s invitations down. Dean still goes out, because he isn’t going to stay in just because he can’t get Cas to leave their room, but he’s always somewhat visibly disappointed. Cas can’t help but wonder what Dean does when he’s alone, when he doesn’t have adults lurking in every corner watching him. He wonders if he dances with other boys, if he kisses them. He has never brought someone back to their room, though, for what Cas is eternally grateful since he feels jealous enough as it is even at the thought of that happening. He wonders if Dean’s a virgin, like Cas. _Fat chance,_ he thinks with colour in his cheeks and, again, jealousy in his gut. He never asks about Dean’s love life and he honestly rather not know.

One night, Dean closes the door of their room, sets the stereo really loud and crouches down next to his bed. He’s sporting that playful, cheeky look in his eyes that tells Castiel he’s up to something.

“What?” Cas asks from behind his books.

“There’s a party tonight and I want you to come with me,” he declares, no room for discussion on his tone this time.

Cas groans. “Dean, no. I know it amuses you to force my bodyguards to frat parties with truly terrible, _terrible_ music, but you’re the only one who enjoys it. I’m 'party-pooper Castiel', I’ve _heard_ people calling me that, and I don't like knowing I'm making everyone uncomfortable with my presence. Well, my bodyguards'.”

“Well, then, let’s just ditch the suits tonight,” Dean shrugs.

Cas scoffs and gives him an incredulous look, then sets his attention back on his book. Dean snatches it away and throws it under the bed.

“Hey!” his friend complains, rising on his elbows.

“Come on, Cas, let’s do it, let’s ditch them, just _once_ ,” Dean all but begs, bouncing up and down.

“No, Dean, you know it could be dangerous.”

“Yeah, Cas, cause terrorists frequent frat parties in case the president’s son decides to make an appearance, so they can kidnap you there.”

His friend simply squints his eyes at him, obviously not thinking it’s funny. Dean grabs his hand, which is no fair, because skin on skin contact with Dean always makes Cas regress from smart college boy with a promising future to teenage levels of critical thinking and he’s more prone to do whatever Dean tells him.

“Come on, please? You know what’s more scary than dying, Cas?” The other boy merely waits for the answer. “Not living at all! You really think I’d let anybody hurt you? I’ll look after you, I promise.”

Cas sighs, feeling his restraint crumbling slowly with that sad puppy look Dean was giving him. _It should be illegal to look that goddamn good_ , he thinks.

“I don’t understand why you even want me to go, I’ll slow you down.”

The last thing Cas wants is to put himself in danger only to have Dean ditch _him_ at the end of the night to get some ass. He’s never seen his friend in action, trying to hook up with somebody, and he’d rather keep it that way, thank you very much. If he has to be Dean’s wing man, he’s going to feel pretty fucking bad.

Dean frowns in confusion. “What? What are you talking about?”

Cas’ cheeks turn a little pink and he hopes Dean doesn’t notice. He doesn’t need to know how jealous he gets when Dean goes out partying and he doesn’t know who he’s spending the night with, he really doesn’t, that’s only Castiel’s problem for crushing on his roommate, and he has no right to demand Dean stays with him all night if he has the chance to go home with someone else.

“Nothing, forget about it,” he mutters under his breath. “It’s impossible anyway, Dean. Crowley will never let me go on my own.”

“I never said we’d ask permission, I said we’d _ditch_ them.”

“But _how_?”

Dean leans in, grinning from ear to ear. Castiel’s breath hitches; Dean’s so close, he can smell his old leather jacket, his after-shave. It’s nice, it’s really, _really_ nice, so Cas holds his breath.

“We’re coming out the window.”

Cas snorts. “Yeah, _right._ ”

But Dean’s dead serious. He goes to the window, slides it open and sits on the edge. Castiel jumps off the bed to stand next to him.

“What on Earth are you doing? You could fall!”

“I already tried it and it’s totally safe,” Dean deadpans, like it’s nothing, like he couldn’t break his neck if he accidentally falls.

“ _When?_ ”

“After chem, last Friday. I knew you had another class and your suits would be away, so I tried it, and it turns out it’s pretty easy to climb out the tree, so come on, put your shoes on and I’ll show you how to do it.”

“You’re insane,” Cas shakes his head. It gives him anxiety to see half of Dean’s body hanging out the window, but he just sits there comfortably like it’s nothing.

“And you’re coming with me. Come _on_ , Cas! I’ve been planning this awhile. Crowley thinks we’re staying in to study so he won’t bother us, the party is in a familiar building, I know all the exits out if shit goes down, I promise not to drink, it’s a chill crowd so there won’t be any drugs, and my friends promised to walk us home so we won’t be alone late at night around campus.”

Cas is speechless for a moment.

“You really gave that a lot of thought.”

Dean smiles but it’s different, it’s soft with a hint of shyness instead of the usually smug smirk, and it does something to Castiel, something he never quite allowed himself to feel before; _hope_ . Dean went through all that trouble, all that planning, just to get him alone for _one_ night. Why? It couldn’t just be to annoy his guards, which is his number one source of entertainment. Cas wanted to believe it was something else, something he secretly longed for…

Without saying a word, he puts on his shoes, takes a jacket and follows Dean out the window. It turns out he was right, climbing out the tree that is right outside their window isn’t actually hard at all, which has him thinking that is kind of a security issue he should report, probably, because someone could break in like that.

Everything is as safe as Dean had promised it would be and nothing bad happens that night. In fact a lot of great things happen; by the end of the night, after much dancing and getting closer to each other little by little, Dean finally kisses Cas, smiling into the kiss.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he confesses, and there it is again, that uncharacteristic softness about him that he apparently reserves only for Cas.

“Really? Why didn’t you do it sooner?”

“With Bela always looking at me waiting for a reason to shoot me? I don’t think so.”

Cas chuckles and kisses him again.

“But we’ve been together alone a lot, in our room.”

“Yeah, I know, but I wanted to take you out of a proper date, at least once.”

Later that night they come back to their room, climbing up the tree and coming in through the window. They feel drunk with the feeling of having done their mischief so well, and also the butterflies in their stomachs. Dean turns the stereo and the lights off. He wanders into Cas’ bed, where they kiss some more before they fall asleep together.

The following morning, Balthazar is religiously checking Dean’s facebook profile and comes across an innocent selfie, posted by Dean, with Cas standing close but at an acceptable distance, as usual, at some party he can’t remember any of them ever going to, at around 2 a.m. that same day.

“Motherf- CASTIEL!”

**3**

It all gets much worse for the team of bodyguards when Dean and Castiel’s relationship, much to their horror, turns from friendly to romantic. They don’t understand how the boys got to that point in the first place; they have nothing on common, absolutely _nothing_ . Dean is constantly driving Cas insane with his childish personality and Cas bores Dean to death with his frequent rant about the ecological importance of ecosystems diversity. Some students say Dean’s way out of Castiel’s league and some say the opposite, opinions are quite divided, but they all agree they make quite the hot couple though they’re probably not going to last long, what with Castiel being this shy and responsible kind of public figure while Dean is… well, Dean is _Dean_ …

And yet, they work like a perfectly oiled machine.

And the team of guards _hates it_.

The little tree trick got them in trouble alright, but not enough to separate them. Crowley did sealed their window though, which kind of makes the room too hot at midday when the sun warms the room too much now that there’s no ventilation, but that’s a low price to pay considering Bela wanted to shoot Dean in the leg to teach him a lesson.

They go out on dates and they _always_ include at least two bodyguards who shadow them. In the movies, they sit behind them. On restaurants, they sit in a corner and watch them. In the park, they sit in a bench a couple of meters away and watch them. They’re always there, creepy paparazzis without the cameras. Dean can always feel their watchful eyes on the back on his neck, can hear their hateful thoughts floating his way. At the start of their relationship, Castiel fears Dean will finally have enough of people always watching them and dump him. It’s not the same being friends with the son’s president than _dating_ him. They have no privacy whatsoever, except in their room, and they have to watch their manners and keep their public displays of affection perfectly PG… But Dean adapts surprisingly well and never gives the bodyguards another reason to scold them. There’s really not a big shift in their relationship, in the way they behave around each other when they’re in public, except they now hold hands when they walk from class to class and Dean plants an innocent peck on his lips when they part ways.

When they’re in the privacy of their room, though…

Their relationship hasn’t only changed into a romantic one, but Cas has also now become sexually active. With _Dean_ , of all people, who apparently is totally shameless, even worse than they feared before, and gets off to torturing the bodyguards by getting loud when he fucks Cas. It’s his own personal revenge for the lack of privacy they’re given, for Crowley sealing their window, for how the secret service agents lurk outside their room in case they hear Dean trying to murder Castiel because they _still_ don’t trust him. Cas doesn’t do it on purpose, he doesn’t _want_ them to hear, and is quite embarrassed for how loud he can get sometimes, but Dean knows how to push Castiel’s buttons to get him to break and cry out his boyfriend’s name pornographically when otherwise he'd try to keep quiet, the usually shy, good boy he is.

After sending the two lovebirds to get tested for STDs because they don’t believe Dean when he says he’s clean, Meg sits down and has a talk about the loud sex with Castiel, which almost causes the young student to die of embarrassment. She asks him to tone it down, or at least put some music on to muffle the noises. Dean takes the advice _very_ seriously and though it starts out as a joke the first time he puts T. Rex’s Get It On loud on the speakers when he goes to have sex with his boyfriend, he ends up doing it so often that he gets a boner if he hears the song anywhere else and Crowley associates it with an instant headache.

**4**

The agents keep waiting, _praying_ for them to break up but the unlikely dynamic duo just won’t break up. If anything, their bond just keeps growing stronger and stronger.

Dean isn’t the type of person who enjoys going out on trips to simply be in contact with nature, not at _all_ , but when his friends invite him to go to the upcoming cabin trip organised by the Outdoors Club, he instantly gets a mental picture of Cas’ bodyguards hiking for five straight hours in the wilderness up to the cabin at the top of the mountain along with him and his friends, and a mischievous, slightly manic grin forms in his face. They don’t even need to convince him with booze and the promise of a great party under the stars, he only wants to see Bela react to the news that she’s going to have to change her heels for hiking boots and walk five fucking hours up and down a trail that is very muddy during this time of the year, when the rains are abundant and the winter snow has only just melted. Cas, the environmentally friendly nerd that he is, agrees right away to go and so Dean all but runs to the club’s office to buy their tickets.

What Dean hadn’t expected was that he too would be struggling to hike for _five fucking hours_ on a rocky, slippery as fuck of a trail that was _barely_ marked (he had no idea how everyone else knew they were going the right way, they were lost for all he knew) and went up and down, up and down, seemingly endlessly. He is panting, sweating, his heart beating faster than with any other workout he had ever tried in his entire life. Cas, in the other hand, is in his element and barely breaking a sweat. Sometimes he’ll crouch down to take a closer look at moss or fungi, sharing with a crowd who doesn’t care at all how wonderful their geometric patterns are. Dean is too exhausted to find it cute. Meg warns him that if he delays them again with that sort of nerdy stuff, she’ll have to shoot him herself and call the whole thing off. Bela has her headphones on, a look of utter hostility on her eyes that screams _do not engage_ and refuses to be socially active and acknowledge anyone else’s existence, except for when she spares a moment to shoot daggers at Dean with her eyes. Dean relishes in her discontent but still decides not to try it again the next year because he’s slipped twice on the trail so far and fell on his ass and Mes enjoyed it a little too much. Balthazar’s complaining non-stop and only the constant ringing on Dean’s ears is making him deaf to it. Crowley has completely bailed on the trip.

Three hours into hiking, they stop for lunch. Bela takes a blanket out of her bag and sets it on the cold ground, refusing to touch anything that has any mud or things that used to be alive, like leaves or sticks… which basically included _everything_ that surrounds them at the time, while she mutters things like, “I didn’t sign up for this” or “they’d better give me a raise”. Meg slumps on a pile of leaves and starts eating lunch. Balthazar keeps complaining until Cas promises to pay him a hundred dollars when they return home if he shuts up. Dean is starving and eats all his food, only to regret it later because it keeps bouncing up and down in his belly when they continue hiking.

Castiel’s personal guards _and_ Dean almost cry with joy when they reach the goddamn cabins.

“I am going to take a nap for an hour,” Bela announces when they settle in and she finally takes her headphones off. She turns to Castiel with a stern look, pointing a finger at the president’s son like he is just some little kid who likes to misbehave, and starts giving out orders. “Do not get in trouble, don’t get bitten by anything, don’t eat any plants or fungi, don’t _touch_ any plants or fungi or insects, don’t even _think_ about going into the lake _and_ do _not_ follow Dean further than a 100 meters away from the cabin perimeter. Got it, Cas?”

Castiel nods obediently from where he is sitting in the grass. Balthazar, Meg and Dean are laying face up around him. Dean’s got his head on Castiel’s thighs, which feel strong and not like they’re absolutely shaking, like Dean’s are.

He can hear some of their friends already making plans to hike some more or start a game of soccer.

“Let’s just sit here in silence for a little while, what do you say, Cas?” Balthazar all but begs. He looks done for the day. Not a nature lover either, this one.

As much as Dean wants to make their lives impossible, he agrees.

“Let’s,” he groans. The sun kisses his skin and he closes his eyes, enjoying the way Castiel’s fingers comb his hair

“Great idea,” Meg mutters.

Cas chuckles, amused; it’s the first time ever since he’s started attending university and met Dean that the agents and his boyfriend agree on something, so he lets them rest.

That night though, Dean is fully awake and makes an effort to drive Cas away from the crowd. They do _not_ run through the woods while giggling like children while Bela runs after them, threatening to frame him for terrorism if he doesn’t return with Cas because that would be reckless… Or maybe just a little, until Dean gets him to a really nice clearing where they can see the stars. They shine really bright, in a way you can never see in the city. Castiel looks up at the sky with a face full of wonder and admiration and Dean watches him with a smile and affection bursting through his chest.

“I love you, Cas,” he tells him for the first time.

Castiel audibly gasps and meets his eyes. He seems surprised again to be the receiver of those words, and Dean will never get it because there’s no one more worthy of attention and love than Cas.

“I love you too,” he replies with a wide, boyish grin.

Then they’re running back to the cabins because Bela is getting awfully close and Dean fears she might kill him if there are no other witnesses around.

**5**

This one isn’t really Dean’s fault. It isn’t his fault they are stuck on the hospital for hours on end because Cas is hysterical and refuses to leave even though he isn’t even allowed to see Dean since he isn’t a family member, but if they weren’t together Bela doubts he’d stick around this much for nothing, so she still blames it on Dean. Crowley tells Cas over and over again that he’ll be fine, that the doctors assured him there weren’t any long lasting injuries but he insists they stay until he wakes up.  It was also Dean who had suggested that bar, that night, Balthazar notes, which adds to Bela’s opinion that this is all still, somehow, Dean’s fault.

“I could be back at the apartment watching Desperate Housewives if you two weren’t together,” she sighs under her breath. Castiel shoots her a dirty look and she shuts up.

They got into a bar fight, a pretty big one. It was a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. The news picked up the story pretty fast. Apparently the tabloids like Dean; he’s handsome, young, smart… But handsome above all, which has caused Cas and Dean to appear in a couple of magazines, the type that typically targets teenage girls, as the hot couple everyone should aim to be like. When they heard the president’s son’s boyfriend got injured in a bar fight when he was defending his Castiel from some homophobic, right-winged assholes, they jumped on the story like a couple of feral lions. They went as far as interviewing some of his classmates to get a profile on Dean, the hero of the day. Cas hated the media and reporters meddling in his life like that, but he did appreciate the videos that had surfaced and probed Dean hadn’t, in fact, started the fight, like the jerks at the bar were claiming had happened.

It all started with some guys loudly talking about them, giving their unwanted opinion on how _fags_ were ruining family values or something, yelling they should leave. Some people from other tables told them to shut up, Cas gave them a small thankful smile. The young couple ignored the things that were being said to them. Balthazar suggested they leave, Cas said no, that he wasn’t going to be bullied out of a public establishment. He refuses to hide, to run away like a coward when things like that happen, and boy, do they happen when you’re the son of a president. Now it seems pretty stupid to him because his stubbornness got Dean hurt. He’d only left their booth for a moment to get their drinks, and of course neither Balthazar nor Bela had followed him to make sure he was okay because Cas was their priority, not Dean, but they had to jump to his rescue when two guys jumped him because then _Castiel_ jumped in too. He had a colourful, painful bruise in the side of his head, but it was nothing comparing to Dean, who had received a pretty strong blow to the head with a beer bottle that had been initially aimed towards Cas, but he’d successfully pushed his boyfriend out of the way and received the blow himself. Then, he’d lost consciousness and after the fight finally broke off when the agents pulled their guns out, an ambulance had come to take him to the hospital.

Meg pats Castiel’s shoulder. Of all of them, Meg’s the closest who resembles a friend, the one he likes the most. She has a passive-aggressive sort of relationship with Dean, but he thinks Dean hates her the least and he’s also pretty sure Meg wouldn’t let Dean die if they ever get in trouble and he needed her help. It’s something, a start; maybe in ten years they’ll like each other.

“He’s going to be okay, Cas,” she promises him.

Dean doesn’t wake up for another 5 hours. Bela fantasizes that he gets pronounced dead and she can finally go back to the apartment and sleep, it’s goddamn passed 3 a.m., but no, Dean decides that’s the best moment to wake up. Cas sneaks in to see him… for another whole hour.

“We should have shot him during the commotion,” Balthazar sighs.

**+1**

Dean is a perfectly behaved gentleman the entire day. It’s his first time meeting Castiel’s family and also the first time he ever sets foot in the White House. Cas’ dad is running for president again, hoping to get reelected, and he wants to make sure the family’s united, so he invites all of his sons to a very formal dinner with political advisers, important, half-famous business men and people Dean doesn’t even understand what exactly they do but they have military clothes on. Despite Crowley’s worries that this will be the day Dean finally does something that gets them all fired, Dean doesn’t so much as gives them a small reason to break a sweat.

In fact, he even behaves better than Castiel, who tries to convince him to have a quickie before they leave because seeing Dean on a suit is apparently a huge turn on he doesn’t get to enjoy too often. But Dean refuses sex. Dean _refuses sex_ and tells him they have to go.  Dean had to save up a lot of money to rent that fancy suit and if they get human fluids on it and he loses the deposit, he’s going to scream.

“Who _are_ you and what have you done with my boyfriend?” Cas asks, pretending to be offended while still trying to get his boyfriend’s shirt out of his slacks.

“Cas, I swear, if you wrinkle my shirt, I will finally give Bela a good reason to shoot me.”

Cas laughs. He drops it, for the time being, finding it endearing how nervous Dean seems. If he’s honest with himself, Castiel is nervous too; this is not only the first time his family meets his boyfriend, his first ever boyfriend, but this is their first attendance at an official government dinner, with really important people present. He’s not nervous about what he might say or do, he’s been to these things before, but he does desperately wish Dean makes a good impression, that he has a good time, that the pressure doesn’t get to him and become a problem between them.

To say he feels out of place is an understatement. Dean is apparently the only who doesn’t know who everyone is. Guests greet each other across the room like old friend, and maybe they are, but no one has any idea who he is and, frankly, though he recognises some faces here and there like the vice-fucking-president and the governor, he has no idea who most people are either though he assumes they are all important people, what with their fancy suits, their loud opinions and expensive watches and jewellery. They do nod their heads politely at Cas, shake his hand, ask him how he’s doing at school, and Dean hovers around patiently waiting for their conversations to end. He holds Castiel’s hand for dear life and tries to feel half the confidence he was sporting the first day they met, but he knows right now how insignificant he is, how much better everyone is, how undeserving he is of Castiel, and it terrifies him. He’s a long way from home, where he was king of everything, and he feels small, but he makes an effort, for Cas’ sake, because if he wants to stick around he’s going to have to catch up.

 _Fake it until you make it_ , he tells himself and smiles at the guests.

It does help to have Castiel next to him. When people ask for his opinion in the middle of a political discussion, he responds he doesn’t know much about the subject, then jokes with being only the pretty face in the relationship. When he does that, an awful habit he has to underestimate himself, Cas is there to talk nothing but praises about him. His boyfriend tells everyone who’s willing to hear that Dean studies engineering too, that he has a full scholarship, that he helps Cas with his midterms. Castiel gives him that sweet smile that tells Dean he is much more important that he gives himself credit for and for a moment Dean believes him.

“Still, Dean, no matter that you’re an engineer. If you wanna be in the family, you’ll have to talk politics,” Gabriel insists.

Castiel’s brothers make an effort to try and quizz Dean, to see if he is worthy of their brother, even though Cas and Dean try time and time again the deflect the subject. Politics have never been Dean’s strong suit, but numbers are; they are safe, there’s only ever one right answer, unlike it happens with social sciences. That’s why he likes engineering so much.

“Come on, tell us, who are you going to vote for in this elections?” Michael asks, raising an eyebrow. Only one answer will be acceptable, of course, and that’s Cas’ father.

“Mr Novak, obviously,” Dean answers.

“Yeah, convenient, but why? Are you just going to vote for him cause he’s Castiel’s dad?” Lucifer asks. He wants to catch Dean in the act, absolutely ignorant and as dumb as he looks.

“I don't know all of his proposals but I know enough and I like them,” Dean merely shrugs. It’s the truth.

“Like…?” Balthazar, who should be quiet, mutters under his breath. He’s smirking, enjoying Dean being so nervous and under the spotlight.

Dean takes a deep breath and goes back to the many conversations he’s had with Cas since they’ve known each other. Cas speaks passionately about what he believes in and Dean has passively heard him rant about a lot of things he actually agrees with for a long time now. He’s surprised to find out he’s learned a lot, remembers more than he thought he would. While he was busy staring at Cas’ pretty face, some of the words actually _did_ reach his brain. He starts listing things off the top of his head.

“Putting a stop to all those tax breaks for big companies who pay their employees shitty wages, recognising and doing something about climate change and pollution -Cas never stops talking about that-, changing gun laws, supporting women rights and also the LGBTQ community, doing something about our fucked up health and education systems… Those are the basics I understand and I agree with.”

There’s a bit of an awkward silence as the people around him look at each other with faint surprise in their faces, and Dean should be slightly offended, but he’s busy being proud of himself for once.

“Well, Cas,” Gabe suddenly breaks the silence, “his verbal skills could use some refining but all in all, not bad, little bro, not bad.”

“Thanks, I guess?” Dean squints his eyes at him, then looks at Castiel for his approval. His boyfriend beams at him and squeezes his hand; he looks radiant, happy, and Dean relaxes, knowing everything’s okay, he’s being accepted after all.

They stay in the White House that night. Castiel finally gets to take Dean’s suit off and congratulate him on a very well behaved evening.

“You really think they liked me?” he asks Cas between kisses.

“I do. You impressed them. What about you? How are you?” Cas stops for a moment, hovering over Dean with his hands on the mattress flanking his boyfriend’s head. “Was it too much? The pressure didn’t get to you, did it?”

Dean smiles warmly at him and lifts his head to press a kiss to his lips. “Stop expecting me to bail on you. Nothing’s going to scare me off if Bela hasn’t yet.”

Cas chuckles and lowers himself to kiss Dean.

Somewhere else in the house, the four agents are called into the president’s office. He sits behind the great Resolute desk and observes them as they stand in front of him. His tie is undone and he’s almost ready to go to bed, where his wife is waiting for him; he just wants a quick word with the team first. Rumour - _Gabriel_ \- has it Castiel might be considering asking Dean to marry him and his father wants to make sure Dean’s the right one before Castiel makes that sort of decision at such a young age.

“What do you think about him?” he asks them.

He’s known them all for years, so the agents speak freely.

“He's a pain in all of our asses and we hate him,” Crowley deadpans.

“Troublemaker,” Balthazar merely says and smiles charmingly.

“We keep praying they'll break up,” Meg contributes, arms crossed over her chest.

“I made a daily effort not to shoot him when we first met him,” Bela confesses. “I still do sometimes.”

Chuck merely chuckles and sits back, relaxed.

"But he behaved perfectly tonight."

Crowley's disappointment is evident. He would have loved it if Dean had tried to kill someone. "Yes, he did," he mutters through gritted teeth. It was more evident than ever that Dean  _could_ , in fact, act in a civilised manner, he just didn't  _want to_ on a daily basis.

“And how is he with Cas?" the president asks then. "Does he treat him well? Did you make a thorough investigation on him, he's not cheating or plotting with other party? Nothing weird going on?”

Meg groans as if she’s just remembered something repugnant. “They're disgustingly in love, he's extremely loyal and it gives me nausea to watch them together.”

“He watched Cas sleeping half the way here with a dumb smile on his face… It was so gross,” Bela tells him, physically cringing like she's recalling something terrible she had to endure.

“Excellent,” Chuck concludes happily, having made his decision to accept Dean into the family.

Balthazar sighs and sits on the couch without asking permission, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Great, we're going to be stuck with him forever now…”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are much much much appreciated!


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